Here’s an interesting factoid about comedy writer Arnie Kogen, to whom I am eternally grateful. He went from selling typewriters to banging them — so to speak! This comes from a book I referred to previously, Completely MAD, A History of Mad the Comic Book and Magazine, by Maria Reidelbach.
For over thirty years Kogen has been one of Mad’s most consistent contributors of television, movie, and celebtiry satire, and for almost as long he has been one of the most active television comedy writers in the business. Kogen was selling typewriters on the Lower East Side when he was introduced to Gaines and Feldstein by Paul Krasser, who published The Realist in an office adjacent to Mad’s at 225 Lafayette. Kogen’s start at Mad led to writing for a number of prominent stand up comedians and performers, including Carol Burnett, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Ronald Reagan. He’s also received many awards for his television writing, including three Emmys.
The book is from 1991, so Kogen has now been a Mad contributor for over 45 years! In fact, he wrote the Spider-Man 3 parody in the latest issue. In addition to Ronald Reagan, the list of prominent stand up comics includes, of course, Morty Gunty.
“We begin bombing in five minutes”? Maybe ‘bomb’ was intended to be taken in the figurative sense, and Reagan told the joke wrong.
He wrote JOKES for “The Great Communicator?” Aren’t you dying to know WHICH ONES?
You know my personality. I often use lines from classic movies at appropriate times. I use a line from Arnie’s Mad parody of “The New Jerry Lewis.” It was drawn by the incomparable Jack Davis. A reporter interviews Jerry, egging him on to “Go, ahead, throw a pie at me, smear peanut butter on my tie, I can take it!” A blase Jerry leans back in his chair, saying, “No, that was the OLD Jerry, this is the NEW Jerry; I’ve MATURED.” The reporter keeps bugging him until Jerry finally does become rabid and attacks him. HA! I used that line all the time with Molly. “That was old Binkle (her nickname for me). This is the NEW Binkle. I’ve … MATURED!.”